After Virtue chapters 4-6
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Jordan Simpson
Jul 17, 2011, 9:26:31 PM7/17/11
to Summer Book Club
I'd like to get together a discuss the first half-dozen chapters or so
this Saturday. Does that work for everyone?
Chapter 4 -
Chapter 4 attempts to provide a brief scetch of the Enlightenment
culture which led to the rise of emotivism in reaction. Rather than
focus on French intellectual, MacIntyre looks at Northern Europeans
who shared several background features: a secular Protestant culture,
an educated class linking government, religious, and intellectual
figures, and a developing university system. These factors kept
intellectuals firmly within social circles, as opposed to France where
intellectuals worked outside the mainstream culture.
This culture saw the rise of "morals" as a sphere of its own,
separated from religious, legal, or aesthetic concerns. Once this
separation occurred in the late seventeenth century, the "project for
a rational justification of morality becomes not just the concern of
individual thinkers, but central to Northern European culture.
MacIntyre's central thesis is that this project was a break from
tradition and provided the background from the moral problems our
culture is dealing with today.
Kierkegaard put a high priority on human choosing of the ethic.
However, the "ethical" is not chosen from a variety of options as it
is today, the choice is between an "aesthetic" life and an ethical
one. Even though Kierkegaard reacted against a rational Christianity,
MacIntyre sees him still firmly connected to Kant. Kant believed that
all moral choices were rational, the same for all beings, and a matter
of will. For Kant, the "ethical" option was the same for everyone.
MacIntyre sees even philosophical "radicals" such as Diderot and Hume
as still affirming the same idea of the "ethical."
Kant also believed that since moral action was the same for all, it
was not informed by God's commands or a particular tradition. Such
justification would not be fully rational. Little did he know that a
liberation of the ethical through rationality would condemn it to a
fall into arbitrariness.
Chapter 5 -
Chapter 5 is an important chapter for MacIntyre's thesis. He believes
that the Enlightenment project to rationally justify morality was
bound to fail due to a similar understanding throughout the culture
regarding human nature. The problem was how all these thinkers failed
to understand humanity in a functional way.
The old view of human nature is traced back to Aristotle, and there
were three main parts (I'll use masculine pronouns following
MacIntyre):
1. Man-as-he-existed-untutored
2. Rational ethics
3. Man-as-he-could-be-if-he-realized-his-telos (goal of being)
Aristotelianism was based around an understanding that humanity was
striving towards becoming something, that there was an intended goal
in mind for the human life. Ethics were about how man could achieve
this end. The major religions added and complicated this system, but
did not really change it. Each one of the three parts in vitally
connected with the other two, and together form a complete system.
MacIntyre lamants the destruction of this system. He points to the
emerging Protestant theologies which greatly increased the power of
sin over human reason. Reason was no longer seen as capable to judge
ends, it was restricted to evaluating means. The old system lost it's
third leg and fell apart.
The Enlightenment rejected any understanding of humans in a functional
way. A watch or farmer can be called good if it runs properly or
produces a good harvest - these are functions of a watch or farmer.
They have specific roles to play, and when they play these roles well
we say they are good. Before the Enlightenment, humans had already
defined their identity in terms of roles - citizen, soldier, baker,
servant of God. The Enlightenment sought to speak of an individual
first, separate and before any role.
MacIntyre writes that "once the notion of essential human purposes or
functions disappears from morality, it begins to appear implausible to
treat moral judgements as factual statements." Any lingering desire to
call a moral action right or wrong is simply "linguistic survival from
the practices of classical theism which have lost the context for
their practices."
The loss of judging moral actions comes from a loss of understanding
man as a function creature, understanding that humans are moving
towards an end. Enlightenment invented a new modern self and a new
social setting. What it invented was the individual.
Chapter 6 -
Enlightenment thinkers weren't unaware of the trouble brought on by
their new conception of an individual freed from social roles and a
history. The absence of traditional criteria for making moral
judgement (related to telos) produced two attempts to re-ground
morality: a redefined telos and a new categorical status. MacIntyre
spends most of this chapter dealing with the first attempt and the
consequences in society.
The new telos was utilitarianism, the attempt to do whatever produced
the most happiness in life. Unfortunately this breaks down as soon as
one points out there are many different, non-compatible types of
happiness. McIntyre uses the continued attempts to provide a quasi-
utilitarian rationale for moral justification to attack the modern
conception of rights. Rights, as in human rights or natural rights,
are merely socially constructed fables, and "belief in them is one
with belief in witches and unicorns." No matter how hard we try to
isolate ourselves as individuals through inherent rights, we are
unable to give a single good reason to belief in rights.
We cannot escape our connections to others, but this reality goes
against our wish to see ourselves as autonomous individuals. Hence
when we encounter others we resort to manipulative practices in
relationships in an attempt to maintain our autonomy. Here MacIntyre's
three characters from chapter 3 reappear (the aesthete, the manager,
and the therapist). All three use the argument of "effectiveness" to
achieve their ends, which MacIntyre sees as an inherently manipulative
means of coercing others. He focuses on the manager, who wields her
authority based on two fictions: the existence of a domain of morally
neutral fact about which the manager claims to be expert, and law-like
generalizations and their applications to particular cases derived
from the study of this domain.
This leaves three primary fictions that MacIntyre sees running our
culture: utility, rights, and effectiveness. Not one of the three can
be successfully arguments as existing, yet we maintain the fiction
that they all exist.
this Saturday. Does that work for everyone?
Chapter 4 -
Chapter 4 attempts to provide a brief scetch of the Enlightenment
culture which led to the rise of emotivism in reaction. Rather than
focus on French intellectual, MacIntyre looks at Northern Europeans
who shared several background features: a secular Protestant culture,
an educated class linking government, religious, and intellectual
figures, and a developing university system. These factors kept
intellectuals firmly within social circles, as opposed to France where
intellectuals worked outside the mainstream culture.
This culture saw the rise of "morals" as a sphere of its own,
separated from religious, legal, or aesthetic concerns. Once this
separation occurred in the late seventeenth century, the "project for
a rational justification of morality becomes not just the concern of
individual thinkers, but central to Northern European culture.
MacIntyre's central thesis is that this project was a break from
tradition and provided the background from the moral problems our
culture is dealing with today.
Kierkegaard put a high priority on human choosing of the ethic.
However, the "ethical" is not chosen from a variety of options as it
is today, the choice is between an "aesthetic" life and an ethical
one. Even though Kierkegaard reacted against a rational Christianity,
MacIntyre sees him still firmly connected to Kant. Kant believed that
all moral choices were rational, the same for all beings, and a matter
of will. For Kant, the "ethical" option was the same for everyone.
MacIntyre sees even philosophical "radicals" such as Diderot and Hume
as still affirming the same idea of the "ethical."
Kant also believed that since moral action was the same for all, it
was not informed by God's commands or a particular tradition. Such
justification would not be fully rational. Little did he know that a
liberation of the ethical through rationality would condemn it to a
fall into arbitrariness.
Chapter 5 -
Chapter 5 is an important chapter for MacIntyre's thesis. He believes
that the Enlightenment project to rationally justify morality was
bound to fail due to a similar understanding throughout the culture
regarding human nature. The problem was how all these thinkers failed
to understand humanity in a functional way.
The old view of human nature is traced back to Aristotle, and there
were three main parts (I'll use masculine pronouns following
MacIntyre):
1. Man-as-he-existed-untutored
2. Rational ethics
3. Man-as-he-could-be-if-he-realized-his-telos (goal of being)
Aristotelianism was based around an understanding that humanity was
striving towards becoming something, that there was an intended goal
in mind for the human life. Ethics were about how man could achieve
this end. The major religions added and complicated this system, but
did not really change it. Each one of the three parts in vitally
connected with the other two, and together form a complete system.
MacIntyre lamants the destruction of this system. He points to the
emerging Protestant theologies which greatly increased the power of
sin over human reason. Reason was no longer seen as capable to judge
ends, it was restricted to evaluating means. The old system lost it's
third leg and fell apart.
The Enlightenment rejected any understanding of humans in a functional
way. A watch or farmer can be called good if it runs properly or
produces a good harvest - these are functions of a watch or farmer.
They have specific roles to play, and when they play these roles well
we say they are good. Before the Enlightenment, humans had already
defined their identity in terms of roles - citizen, soldier, baker,
servant of God. The Enlightenment sought to speak of an individual
first, separate and before any role.
MacIntyre writes that "once the notion of essential human purposes or
functions disappears from morality, it begins to appear implausible to
treat moral judgements as factual statements." Any lingering desire to
call a moral action right or wrong is simply "linguistic survival from
the practices of classical theism which have lost the context for
their practices."
The loss of judging moral actions comes from a loss of understanding
man as a function creature, understanding that humans are moving
towards an end. Enlightenment invented a new modern self and a new
social setting. What it invented was the individual.
Chapter 6 -
Enlightenment thinkers weren't unaware of the trouble brought on by
their new conception of an individual freed from social roles and a
history. The absence of traditional criteria for making moral
judgement (related to telos) produced two attempts to re-ground
morality: a redefined telos and a new categorical status. MacIntyre
spends most of this chapter dealing with the first attempt and the
consequences in society.
The new telos was utilitarianism, the attempt to do whatever produced
the most happiness in life. Unfortunately this breaks down as soon as
one points out there are many different, non-compatible types of
happiness. McIntyre uses the continued attempts to provide a quasi-
utilitarian rationale for moral justification to attack the modern
conception of rights. Rights, as in human rights or natural rights,
are merely socially constructed fables, and "belief in them is one
with belief in witches and unicorns." No matter how hard we try to
isolate ourselves as individuals through inherent rights, we are
unable to give a single good reason to belief in rights.
We cannot escape our connections to others, but this reality goes
against our wish to see ourselves as autonomous individuals. Hence
when we encounter others we resort to manipulative practices in
relationships in an attempt to maintain our autonomy. Here MacIntyre's
three characters from chapter 3 reappear (the aesthete, the manager,
and the therapist). All three use the argument of "effectiveness" to
achieve their ends, which MacIntyre sees as an inherently manipulative
means of coercing others. He focuses on the manager, who wields her
authority based on two fictions: the existence of a domain of morally
neutral fact about which the manager claims to be expert, and law-like
generalizations and their applications to particular cases derived
from the study of this domain.
This leaves three primary fictions that MacIntyre sees running our
culture: utility, rights, and effectiveness. Not one of the three can
be successfully arguments as existing, yet we maintain the fiction
that they all exist.
Wesley McKain
Jul 18, 2011, 10:49:26 AM7/18/11
to kcsummer...@googlegroups.com
Yea I'd be down for it, if it's in the afternoon. We have a pancake & painting party at NKCYS, we're caulking and painting some windows in the morning and eating pancakes. But after that, I'm down.
Brian Longfellow
Jul 19, 2011, 3:55:05 PM7/19/11
to kcsummer...@googlegroups.com
my availability is opposite Wesley's: i'd have to be finished up by noon. of course, i'm nowhere near chapter 6, or chapter 4 for that matter, so don't make a decision based on my availability.
beLong
beLong
On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 8:26 PM, Jordan Simpson <jsim...@gmail.com> wrote:
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